Goals: This was at least the seventh Soviet effort to send an unmanned spacecraft around the Moon and back to Earth.

Accomplishments: Zond 7 was the first fully successful Soviet mission to fly a spacecraft around the Moon and return it to Earth. Though no humans were aboard, it carried a number of animals and other living things, including four steppe tortoises. It transmitted color pictures of both Earth and the Moon, and achieved a soft landing in Kazakhstan.